Brahmi script

Brahmi (IAST: Brāhmī) is the modern name given to one of the oldest writing systems used in Ancient India and
present South and Central Asia from the 1st millennium BCE.[1] Brahmi is an abugida that thrived in the Indian
Brahmi
subcontinent and uses a system of diacritical marks to associate vowels with consonant symbols. It evolved into a host
of other scripts that continue in use.[2][3][4] Brahmi is related to the ancient Kharoṣṭhī script, which was used in what is
now eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kharoṣṭhī died out in ancient times.[5]

The best-known Brahmi inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dating to 250–232 BCE.
The script was deciphered in 1837 by James Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the East India
Company.[6] The origin of the script is still much debated, with some scholars arguing that Brahmi was derived from or
at least influenced by one or more contemporary Semitic scripts, while others favor the idea of an indigenous origin or
Brahmi script on Ashoka Pillar
connection to the much older and as-yet undeciphered Indus script.[7][8] The Brahmi system, vowels, consonants, their
classification and methods of pronunciation are completely described in the Vedas as part of the Taittiriya Pratishakya Type Abugida
providing some evidence that its origin may be much older than current estimations (Referaittiriya
T Pratishakya). Languages (Prakrit), Dravidian
languages (Tamil-
Brahmi was at one time referred to in English as the "pin-man" script,[9] that is "stick figure" script. It was known by a
Brahmi et al.), Saka,
variety of other names[10] until the 1880s when Albert Étienne Jean Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie, based on an
Tocharian
observation by Gabriel Devéria, associated it with the Brahmi script, the first in a list of scripts mentioned in the
Time 12th century BCE to
Lalitavistara Sūtra. Thence the name was adopted in the influential work of Georg Bühler, albeit in the variant form
period 5th century CE
"Brahma".[11] The Gupta script of the fifth century is sometimes called "Late Brahmi".
Parent Proto-Sinaitic script
The Brahmi script diversified into numerous local variants classified together as the
Brahmic scripts. Dozens of modern systems
scripts used across South Asia have descended from Brahmi, making it one of the world's most influential writing Phoenician
traditions.[12] One survey found 198 scripts that ultimately derive from it.[13] The script was associated with its own alphabet
Brahmi numerals, which ultimately provided the graphic forms for the Hindu–Arabic numeral system now used
Aramaic
through most of the world.
alphabet

Brahmi

Contents Child Gupta, Pallava

systems alphabet, and
Texts
numerous descendant
Origins
Semitic model hypothesis writing systems
Indigenous origin hypothesis Sister Kharoṣṭhī
Issues with current theories on Brahmi script origins systems
Origin of the name Direction Left-to-right
Ashoka inscriptions ISO 15924 Brah, 300
Early regional variants
Unicode Brahmi
Sri Lankan inscriptions alias
Characteristics Unicode U+11000–U+1107F
Punctuation range
Letters
Vowels
Consonants
Descendants
Unicode and digitization
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links

Texts
The Brahmi script is mentioned in the ancient Indian texts of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, as well as their Chinese translations.[14][15] For example, the Lipisala
samdarshana parivarta lists 64 lipi (scripts), with the Brahmi script starting the list. The Lalitavistara Sūtra states that young Siddhartha, the future Gautama Buddha
(~500 BCE), mastered philology, Brahmi and other scripts from theBrahmin Lipikāra and Deva Vidyāiṃha at a school.[16][14]
A shorter list of eighteen ancient scripts is found in the texts of Jainism, such as the Pannavana Sutra (2nd century BCE) and the Samavayanga Sutra (3rd century
BCE).[17][18] These Jaina script lists include Brahmi at number 1 and Kharoṣṭhi at number 4 but also Javanaliya (probably Greek) and others not found in the Buddhist
lists.[18]

Origins
While the contemporary Kharoṣṭhī script is widely accepted to be a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet, the genesis of
the Brahmi script is less straightforward. Salomon reviewed existing theories in 1998,[2] while Falk provided an
overview in 1993.[19]

An origin in Semitic scripts (usually the Aramaic or Phoenician alphabet) has been proposed by some scholars since
the publications by Albrecht Weber (1856) and Georg Bühler's On the origin of the Indian Brahma alphabet
(1895).[20][3] Bühler's ideas have been particularly influential, though even by the 1895 date of his opus on the subject, A fragment of Ashoka's 6th pillar
edict (3rd-century BCE).
he could identify no less than five competing theories of the origin, one positing an indigenous origin and the others
deriving it from various Semitic models.[21]

The most disputed point about the origin of the Brahmi script has long been whether it was a purely indigenous
development or was borrowed or derived from scripts that originated outside India. Goyal noted that most proponents
of the indigenous view are Indian scholars, whereas the idea of borrowing or influence from some non-Indian (typically
Semitic) script are mostly Western scholars, and Salomon agrees with Goyal that there are no doubt biases – nationalist
or imperialistic – on both sides of the debate.[22] Bühler curiously cited a passage by Sir Alexander Cunningham, one
of the earliest indigenous origin proponents, that indicated that, in his time, the indigenous origin was a preference of
English scholars in opposition to the "unknown Western" origin preferred by continental scholars.[21] Cunningham in
the seminal Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum of 1877 speculated that Brahmi characters were derived from, among
other things, a pictographic principle based on the human body,[23] but Bühler noted that by 1891, Cunningham
considered the origins of the script uncertain.

Most scholars believe that Brahmi was likely derived from or influenced by a Semitic script model, with Aramaic being
a leading candidate.[1] However, the issue is not settled due to the lack of direct evidence and unexplained differences
between Aramaic, Kharoṣṭhī, and Brahmi.[24] Virtually all authors accept that regardless of the origins, the degree of
Indian development of the Brahmi script in both the graphic form and the structure has been extensive. It is also widely
accepted that theories about the grammar of the Vedic language probably had a strong influence on this development. Evolution of the Brahmi script from
Some authors – both Western and Indian – suggest that Brahmi was borrowed or inspired by a Semitic script, invented 250 BCE to 800 CE.
in a short few years during the reign of Ashoka and then used widely for Ashokan inscriptions.[24] In contrast, some
authors reject the idea of foreign influence.[25][26]

The earliest known full inscriptions of Brahmi are in Prakrit, dated to be from 3rd to 1st-century
BCE.[29] Prakrit records predominate the epigraphic records discovered in the Indian
subcontinent through about 1st-century CE.[29] The earliest known Brahmi inscriptions in
Sanskrit are from the 1st-century BCE, such as the few discovered in Ayodhya, Ghosundi and
Hathibada (both near Chittorgarh).[30][note 1] Ancient inscriptions have also been discovered in
many North and Central Indian sites, occasionally in South India as well, that are in hybrid
Sanskrit-Prakrit language called "Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit".[note 2] These are dated by
modern techniques to between 1st and 4th-century CE.[33][34] Surviving ancient records of the
Brahmi script are found as engravings on pillars, temple walls, metal plates, terra-cotta, coins,
crystals and manuscripts.[35][34]

Heliodorus pillar in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
Installed about 120 BCE and now named after the Indo-
Greek, the pillar's Brahmi-script inscription states that
Heliodorus is a Bhagvatena (devotee) of Vishnu. A
couplet in it closely paraphrases a Sanskrit verse from
the Mahabharata.[27][28]
[5]
Pakistan for a while before it died out in ancient times.
There appears to be general agreement at least that Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī are historically
related, though much disagreement persists about the nature of this relationship. Bruce Trigger
considered them, as a pair, to be one of four instances of the invention of an alphasyllabary, the
other three being Old Persian cuneiform, the Meroitic alphabet, and the Ge'ez script. All four of
these have striking similarities, such as using short /a/ as an inherent vowel, but Trigger (who
accepted the Aramaic inspiration of Brahmi with extensive local development, along with a pre-
Ashokan date) was unable to find a direct common source among them.[5] Trigger states that
Brahmi was in use in Sri Lanka and India at least by 4th or 5th century BCE, while Kharoṣṭhī
was used only in what are now eastern parts of modern Afghanistan and neighboring regions of

Justeson and Stephens proposed that this inherent vowel system in Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī developed by transmission of a Semitic abjad through the recitation of its
letter values. The idea is that learners of the source alphabet recite the sounds by combining the consonant with an unmarked vowel, e.g. /kə/,/kʰə/,/gə/, and in the
process of borrowing into another language, these syllables are taken to be the sound values of the symbols. They also accepted the idea that Brahmi was based on a
North Semitic model.[36]
One of the most important recent developments regarding the origin of Brahmi has been the discovery of Brahmi characters inscribed on fragments of pottery from the
trading town of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, which have been dated between the sixth to early fourth century BCE.[37] Coningham et al. in 1996,[38] stated that the
script on the Anuradhapura inscriptions is Brahmi, but stated that the language was a Prakrit rather than a Dravidian language. The historical sequence of the specimens
was interpreted to indicate an evolution in the level of stylistic refinement over several centuries, and they concluded that the Brahmi script may have arisen out of
"mercantile involvement" and that the growth of trade networks in Sri Lanka was correlated with its first appearance in the area.[38] Salomon in his 1998 review states
that the Anuradhapura inscriptions support the theory that Brahmi existed in South Asia before the Mauryan times, with studies favoring the 4th-century BC, but some
[37]
doubts remain whether the inscriptions might be intrusive into the potsherds from a later date.

More recently in 2013, Rajan and Yatheeskumar published excavations at Porunthal and Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu, where numerous both Tamil-Brahmi and "Prakrit-
Brahmi" inscriptions and fragments have been found.[39] Their stratigraphic analysis combined with radiocarbon dates of paddy grains and charcoal samples indicated
that inscription contexts date to as far back as the 5th and perhaps 6th centuries BCE.[40] As these were published very recently, they have as yet not been commented
on extensively in the literature.

Semitic model hypothesis

James Prinsep, known for deciphering Brahmi in early 19th-century, was first to propose a connection between
Indian scripts and Greek. He suggested that the oldest Greek was a "topsy-turvy" version of an ancient Indian
language.[42] K. Ottfried Muller reversed this proposal suggesting that Brahmi was derived from Greek after the
arrival of Alexander the Great.[42]

Many scholars link the origin of Brahmi to Semitic script models, particularly Aramaic.[20] The explanation of
how this might have happened, the particular Semitic script and the chronology have been the subject of much
debate. Bühler followed Max Weber in connecting it particularly to Phoenician and proposed an early 8th century
BCE date[43] for the borrowing. A link to the South Semitic script, a less prominent branch of the Semitic script
family has occasionally been proposed but has not gained much acceptance.[44] Finally, the Aramaic script being
the prototype for Brahmi has been the more preferred hypothesis because of its geographic proximity to the
Indian subcontinent, and its influence likely arising because Aramaic was the bureaucratic language of the
Achaemenid empire. However, this hypothesis does not explain the mystery of why two very different scripts,
Kharoṣṭhī and Brahmi, developed from the same Aramaic. A possible explanation might be that Ashoka created
[45]
an imperial script for his edicts, but there is no evidence to support this conjecture.

Left pillar No.9 of the Great Chatya at

Bühler's theory Karla Caves. This pillar was donated by a
Yavana (Indo-Greek), circa 120 CE, like
According to the Semitic hypothesis as laid out by Bühler in 1898, the oldest Brahmi inscriptions were derived five other pillars. The inscription of this
from a Phoenician prototype.[46][note 3] Salomon states Bühler's arguments are "weak historical, geographical, pillar reads: "Dhenukakata Yavanasa/
and chronological justifications for a Phoenician prototype". Discoveries made since Bühler's proposal, such as of Yasavadhanana[m]/ thabo dana[m]"i.e. "
six Mauryan inscriptions in Aramaic suggest Bühler's proposal about Phoenician as weak. It is more likely that (This) pillar (is) the gift of the Yavana
Aramaic, which was virtually certain the prototype for Kharoṣṭhī, also may have been the basis for Brahmi. Yasavadhana from Denukakata".[41]
Below: detail of the word "Ya-va-na-sa"
ferent scripts.[45]
However, it is unclear why the ancient Indians would have developed two very dif
(adjectival form of "Yavana", Brahmi
script).
According to Bühler, Brahmi added symbols for certain sounds not found in Semitic languages, an
d either deleted
or repurposed symbols for Aramaic sounds not found in Prakrit. For example, Aramaic lacks the phonetic
retroflex feature that appears among Prakrit dental stops, such as ḍ, and in Brahmi the symbols of the retroflex
and non-retroflex consonants are graphically very similar, as if both had been derived from a single prototype. (See Tibetan alphabet for a similar later development.)
Aramaic did not have Brahmi’s aspirated consonants (kh, th, etc.), whereas Brahmi did not have Aramaic's emphatic consonants (q, ṭ, ṣ), and it appears that these
unneeded emphatic letters filled in for some of Brahmi's aspirates: Aramaic q for Brahmi kh, Aramaic ṭ (Θ) for Brahmi th (ʘ), etc. And just where Aramaic did not
have a corresponding emphatic stop, p, Brahmi seems to have doubled up for the corresponding aspirate: Brahmi p and ph are graphically very similar, as if taken from
the same source in Aramaic p. Bühler saw a systematic derivational principle for the other aspirates ch, jh, ph, bh, and dh, which involved adding a curve or upward
hook to the right side of the character (which has been speculated to derive from h, ), while d and ṭ (not to be confused with the Semitic emphatic ṭ) were derived by
back formation from dh and ṭh.[48]
 Bühler's aspirate derivations
IAST -aspirate +aspirate origin of aspirate according to Bühler
k/kh Semitic emphatic (qoph)

g/gh Semitic emphatic (heth) (hook addition in Bhattiprolu script)

c/ch curve addition

j/jh hook addition with some alteration

p/ph curve addition

b/bh hook addition with some alteration

t/th Semitic emphatic (teth)

d/dh unaspirated glyph back formed

ṭ/ṭh unaspirated glyph back formed as if aspirated glyph with curve

ḍ/ḍh curve addition

[49][50]
The following table lists the correspondences between Brahmi and North Semitic scripts.

[50][note 4]
Comparison of North Semitic and Brahmi scripts
Phoenician Aramaic Value Brahmi Value
* a

b [b] ba

g [ɡ] ga

d [d] dha

h [h], M.L. ha

w [w], M.L. va

z [z] ja

ḥ [ħ] gha

ṭ [tˤ] tha

y [j], M.L. ya

k [k] ka

l [l] la

m [m] ma

n [n] na

s [s] ṣa

ʿ [ʕ], M.L. e

p [p] pa

ṣ [sˤ] ca

q [q] kha

r [r] ra

š [ʃ] śa

t [t] ta

Bühler states that both Phoenician and Brahmi had three voiceless sibilants, but because the alphabetical ordering was lost, the correspondences among them are not
clear. Bühler was able to suggest Brahmi derivatives corresponding to all of the 22 North Semitic characters, though clearly, as Bühler himself recognized, some are
more confident than others. He tended to place much weight on phonetic congruence as a guideline, for example connecting c to tsade rather than kaph , as
preferred by many of his predecessors.

One of the key problems with a Phoenician derivation is the lack of evidence for historical contact with Phoenicians in the relevant period.[45] Bühler explained this by
proposing that the initial borrowing of Brahmi characters dates back considerably earlier than the earliest known evidence, as far back as 800 BCE, contemporary with
the Phoenician glyph forms that he mainly compared. Bühler cited a near-modern practice of writing Brahmic scripts informally without vowel diacritics as a possible
[43]
continuation of this earlier abjad-like stage in development.

The weakest forms of the Semitic hypothesis are similar to Gnanadesikan's

trans-cultural diffusion view of the development of Brahmi and Kharoṣṭhī, in which the idea
of alphabetic sound representation was learned from the Aramaic-speaking Persians, but much of the writing system was a novel development tailored to the phonology
of Prakrit.[52]
Another evidence cited in favor of Persian influence has been the Hultzsch proposal in 1925 that the Prakrit/Sanskrit
word for writing itself, lipi is similar to the Old Persian word dipi, suggesting a probable borrowing.[53][54] A few of
the Ashoka edicts from the region nearest the Persian empire use dipi as the Prakrit word for writing, which appears as
lipi elsewhere, and this geographic distribution has long been taken, at least back to Bühler's time, as an indication that
the standard lipi form is a later alteration that appeared as it diffused away from the Persian sphere of influence. Persian
Dipi itself is thought to be anElamite loanword.[55]

Falk's theory
Falk's 1993 book Schrift im Alten Indien is considered a definitive study on writing in ancient India.[56][57] Falk's
section on the origins of the Brahmi script[19] features an extensive review of the literature up to that time. Falk also
puts forth his own ideas. As have a number of other authors, Falk sees the basic writing system of Brahmi as being
derived from the Kharoṣṭhī script, itself a derivative of Aramaic. At the time of his writing, the Ashoka edicts were the
oldest confidently dateable examples of Brahmi, and he perceives in them "a clear development in language from a
faulty linguistic style to a well honed one"[58] over time, which he takes to indicate that the script had been recently
developed.[19][59] Falk deviates from the mainstream of opinion in seeing Greek as also being a significant source for Some common variants of Brahmic
Brahmi. On this point particularly, Salomon disagrees with Falk, and after presenting evidence of very different letters
methodology between Greek and Brahmi notation of vowel quantity, he states "it is doubtful whether Brahmi derived
even the basic concept from a Greek prototype".[42] Further, adds Salomon, in a "limited sense Brahmi can be said to
be derived from Kharosthi, but in terms of the actual forms of the characters, the dif [60]
ferences between the two Indian scripts are much greater than the similarities".

Falk also dated the origin of Kharoṣṭhī to no earlier than 325 BC, based on a proposed connection to the Greek conquest.[61] Salomon questions Falk's arguments as to
the date of Kharoṣṭhī and writes that it is "speculative at best and hardly constitutes firm grounds for a late date for Kharoṣṭhī. The stronger argument for this position
is that we have no specimen of the script before the time of Ashoka, nor any direct evidence of intermediate stages in its development; but of course this does not mean
that such earlier forms did not exist, only that, if they did exist, they have not survived, presumably because they were not employed for monumental purposes before
Ashoka".[59]

Unlike Bühler, Falk does not provide details of which and how the presumptive prototypes may have been mapped to
the individual characters of Brahmi. Further, states Salomon, Falk accepts there are anomalies in phonetic value and
diacritics in Brahmi script that are not found in the presumed Kharoṣṭhī script source. Falk attempts to explain these
.[59][62]
anomalies by reviving Greek influence hypothesis, a hypothesis that had previously fallen out of favor

Hartmut Scharfe, in his 2002 review of Kharoṣṭī and Brāhmī scripts, concurs with Salomon's questioning of Falk's
proposal, and states, "the pattern of the phonemic analysis of the Sanskrit language achieved by the Vedic scholars is
[8]
much closer to the Brahmi script than the Greek alphabet".

Indigenous origin hypothesis

The idea of an indigenous origin such as a connection to the Indus script is supported by some Western and Indian
scholars and writers. The theory that there are similarities to the Indus script was suggested by early European scholars Coin of Vikramaditya (Chandragupta
such as the Cambridge University archaeologist John Marshall[63] and the Oxford University professor Stephen II) with the name of the king in
Langdon,[64] and it continues to be suggested by scholars and writers such as (among others) the computer scientist Brahmi script 380-415 CE.

Subhash Kak, the German Indologist Georg Feuerstein, the American teacher David Frawley, the British archaeologist
Raymond Allchin, and the Cambridge University professorJack Goody.[65][66][67]

Raymond Allchin states that there is a powerful argument against the idea that the Brahmi script has Semitic borrowing because the whole structure and conception is
quite different. He suggests that the origin may have been purely indigenous with the Indus script as its predecessor.[68] However, Allchin and Erdosy later in 1995
expressed the opinion that there was as yet insufficient evidence to resolve the question.[69] G.R. Hunter in his book The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and Its
Connection with Other Scripts(1934) proposed a derivation of the Brahmi alphabets from the Indus Script, the match being considerably higher than that of Aramaic in
his estimation.[70]

Subhash Kak does not acknowledge the proposed Semitic origins of the script[71] , instead arguing that the interaction between the Indic and the Semitic worlds via the
Mitanni prior to the rise of the Semitic scripts might imply a reverse process.[72] However, the chronology thus presented and the notion of an unbroken tradition of
literacy is opposed by a majority of academics who support an indigenous origin. Evidence for a continuity between Indus and Brahmi has also been seen in graphic
similarities between Brahmi and the late Indus script, where the ten most common ligatures correspond with the form of one of the ten most common glyphs in
Brahmi.[73] There is also corresponding evidence of continuity in the use of numerals.[74] Further support for this continuity comes from statistical analysis of the
relationship carried out by Das.[75] Salomon considered simple graphic similarities between characters to be insufficient evidence for a connection without knowing the
phonetic values of the Indus script, though he found apparent similarities in patterns of compounding and diacritical modification to be "intriguing." However, he felt
that it was premature to explain and evaluate them due to the lar [76]
ge chronological gap between the scripts and the thus far indecipherable nature of the Indus script.

The main obstacle to this idea is the lack of evidence for writing during the millennium and a half between the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation around 1500
BCE and the first widely accepted appearance of Brahmi in the 3rd and 4th centuries BCE. Iravathan Mahadevan makes the point that even if one takes the latest dates
of 1500 BCE for the Indus script and earliest claimed dates of Brahmi around 500 BCE, a thousand years still separates the two.[77] Furthermore, there is no accepted
decipherment of the Indus script, which makes theories based on claimed decipherments tenuous. A promising possible link between the Indus script and later writing
traditions may be in themegalithic graffiti symbols of the South Indian megalithic culture, which may have some overlap with the Indus symbol inventory and persisted
in use up at least through the appearance of the Brahmi and Tamil Brahmi scripts up into the third century CE. These graffiti usually appear singly, though on occasion
may be found in groups of two or three, and are thought to have been family, clan, or religious symbols.[78] In 1935, C.L. Fábri proposed that symbols found on
Mauryan punch-marked coins were remnants of the Indus script that had survived the collapse of the Indus civilization.[79] Iravatham Mahadevan, decipherer of Tamil-
Brahmi and a noted expert on the Indus script, has supported the idea that both those semiotic traditions may have some continuity with the Indus script, but regarding
[77]
the idea of continuity with Brahmi, he has categorically stated that he does not believe that theory "at all."

Another form of the indigenous origin theory is that Brahmi was invented ex nihilo, entirely independently from either Semitic models or the Indus script, though
[80]
Salomon found these theories to be wholly speculative in nature.

Pāṇini (6th to 4th century BCE) mentions lipi, the Indian word for writing scripts in his definitive work on Sanskrit grammar, the Ashtadhyayi. According to Scharfe,
the words lipi and libi are borrowed from the Old Persian dipi, in turn derived from Sumerian dup.[54][81] Scharfe adds that the best evidence, at the time of his review,
is that no script was used or ever known in India, aside from the Persian-dominated Northwest, before around 300 BCE because Indian tradition "at every occasion
[54]
stresses the orality of the cultural and literary heritage."

Megasthenes observations
Megasthenes, a Greek ambassador to the Mauryan court in Northeastern India only a quarter century before Ashoka, noted "… and this among a people who have no
written laws, who are ignorant even of writing, and regulate everything by memory."[82] This has been variously and contentiously interpreted by many authors. Ludo
Rocher almost entirely dismisses Megasthenes as unreliable, questioning the wording used by Megasthenes' informant and Megasthenes' interpretation of them.[83]
Timmer considers it to reflect a misunderstanding that the Mauryans were illiterate "based upon the fact that Megasthenes rightly observed that the laws were unwritten
[84]
and that oral tradition played such an important part in India."

Some proponents of the indigenous origin theories question the reliability and interpretation of comments made by Megasthenes (as quoted by Strabo in the
Geographica XV.i.53). For one, the observation may only apply in the context of the kingdom of "Sandrakottos" (Chandragupta). Elsewhere in Strabo (Strab. XV.i.39),
Megasthenes is said to have noted that it was a regular custom in India for the "philosopher" caste (presumably Brahmins) to submit "anything useful which they have
committed to writing" to kings,[85] but this detail does not appear in parallel extracts of Megasthenes found in Arrian and Diodorus Siculus.[86][87] The implication of
writing per se is also not totally clear in the original Greek as the term "συντάξῃ" can be read as a generic "composition" rather than a written composition in particular.
Nearchus, a contemporary of Megasthenes, noted, a few decades prior, the use of cotton fabric for writing in Northern India. Indologists have variously speculated that
this might have been Kharoṣṭhī or the Aramaic alphabet. Salomon regards the evidence from Greek sources to be inconclusive.[88] Strabo himself notes this
inconsistency regarding reports on the use of writing in India (XV
.i.67).

Issues with current theories on Brahmi script origins

Kenneth Norman, a professor and the President of the Pali Text Society, suggests that writing scripts in ancient India
evolved over a long period of time as with other cultures and that it is unlikely that Brahmi was devised as a complete
writing system in a single effort in the Maurya era. Norman suggests that it is even less likely that Brāhmī was invented
during Aśoka's rule, starting from nothing, for the specific purpose of writing his inscriptions and subsequently
understood all over South Asia where the pillars of Ashoka are found.[89] Reviewing recent archaeological discoveries
A palm leaf Sanskrit manuscript in
relating to writing scripts in ancient India and particularly to Buddhism, Norman writes, "Support for this idea of pre- Brahmi script discovered inMiran,
Aśokan development has been given very recently by the discovery of sherds at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, inscribed northwest China.
with small numbers of characters which seem to be Brāhmī. These sherds have been dated, by both Carbon 14 and
[90]
Thermo-luminescence dating, to pre-Aśokan times, perhaps as much as much as two centuries before Aśoka."

Jack Goody, a professor of social anthropology, similarly suggests that ancient India likely had a "very old culture of writing" along with its oral tradition of composing
and transmitting knowledge, because the Vedic literature is too vast, consistent and complex to have been entirely created, memorized, accurately preserved and spread
without a written system.[91][92] Walter Ong, a professor of literature and religious history, and John Hartley, a professor of cultural science, concur with Goody and
share the same concerns about the theory that there may not have been any writing scripts including Brahmi during the Vedic age, given the quantity and quality of the
Vedic literature.[93]

Falk disagrees with Goody and suggests that it is a Western presumption and inability to imagine that remarkably early scientific achievements such as Panini's
grammar (5th to 4th century BCE), and the creation, preservation and wide distribution of the large corpus of the Brahmanas and the Buddhist canonical literature,
could have occurred without any writing scripts.[94] Johannes Bronkhorst, a professor of Sanskrit and Indian studies, acknowledges that Falk is widely regarded as the
definitive study on this subject but disagrees and states,

Falk goes too far. It is fair to expect that we believe that Vedic memorisation — though without parallel in any other human society — has been able to
preserve very long texts for many centuries without losing a syllable. (...) However, the oral composition of a work as complex as Pāṇini’s grammar is
not only without parallel in other human cultures, it is without parallel in India itself. (...) It just will not do to state that our difficulty in conceiving any
such thing is our problem.[56]

Origin of the name

Several divergent accounts of the origin of the name "Brahmi" appear in history and legend. Several Sutras of Jainism such as the Vyakhya Pragyapti Sutra, the
Samvayanga Sutra and the Pragyapna Sutra of the Jain Agamas include a list of 18 writing scripts known to teachers before the Mahavira was born, with the Brahmi
script (bambhī in the original Prakrit) leading all these lists. The Brahmi script is missing from the 18 script list in the surviving versions of two later Jaina Sutras,
namely the Vishesha Avashyaka and the Kalpa Sutra. Jain legend recounts that 18 writing scripts were taught by their first Tirthankara Rishabhanatha to his daughter
[95]
Brahmi, she emphasized Brahmi as the main script as she taught others, and therefore the name Brahmi for the script comes after her name.

A Chinese Buddhist account of the 6th century CE attributes its creation to the god Brahma, though Monier Monier-Williams, Sylvain Lévi and others thought it was
more likely to have been given the name because it was moulded by theBrahmins.[96][97]

The term Brahmi appears in ancient Indian texts in different contexts. The Vedic era Vajaseneyi Samhita of the Yajurveda, for example, uses this word in the sense of
"Brahmanical, holy, divine.[98][99] According to the rules of the Sanskrit language, it is a feminine word which literally means "of Brahma" or "the female energy of the
Brahman".[100] In other texts such as the Mahabharata, it appears in the sense of a goddess, particularly for Saraswati as the goddess of speech and elsewhere as
"personified Shakti (energy) of Brahma".[98]

Ashoka inscriptions
Brahmi is clearly attested from the 3rd century BCE during the reign of Ashoka, who used the script for imperial
edicts. It has commonly been supposed that the script was developed at around this time, both from the paucity of
earlier dated examples, the alleged unreliability of those earlier dates, and from the geometric regularity of the
[47]
script, which some have taken to be evidence that it had been recently invented.

Early regional variants

Ashokan inscriptions are found all over India and a few regional variants have been observed. The Bhattiprolu
alphabet, with earliest inscriptions dating from a few decades of Ashoka's reign, is believed to have evolved from
a southern variant of the Brahmi alphabet. The language used in these inscriptions, nearly all of which have been
found upon Buddhist relics, is exclusively Prakrit, though Telugu proper names have been identified in some
inscriptions. Twenty-three letters have been identified. The letters ga and sa are similar to Mauryan Brahmi,
while bha and da resemble those of modernTelugu script.

Tamil-Brahmi is a variant of the Brahmi alphabet that was in use in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and parts of Sri Lanka
during the Sangam period. The language used in most of these inscriptions have been identified as a form of
Tamil with a heavy admixture of Prakrit words though there are a few which are exclusively in Pra
krit, as well.

Sri Lankan inscriptions

In English, the most widely available set of reproductions of Brahmi-script texts found in Sri Lanka Epigraphia
is Connections between Phoenician (4th
[101] column) and Brahmi (5th column). Note
Zeylanica; in volume 1 (1976), many of the inscriptions are dated from the 3rd to 2nd century BC.
that 6th-to-4th-century BCE Aramaic (not
shown) is in many cases intermediate in
Unlike the edicts of Ashoka, however, the majority of the inscriptions from this early period in Sri Lanka are
form between the two.
found above caves, are only a few words in length and "rarely say anything more than the name of the donor
(who paid for the renovation of the cave, presumably); sometimes the donor's profession and village-of-origin are
added, and sometimes the reader may be unable to guess if they are looking at the name of a person, profession or village, but can see that it is a name in any case (and
not a philosophical statement)."[102] The language of Sri Lanka Brahmi inscriptions has been mostly been Prakrit though some Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions have also
been found, such as theAnnaicoddai seal.[103]

The earliest widely accepted examples of writing in Brahmi are found inAnuradhapura, Sri Lanka.[38]

Characteristics
Brahmi is usually written from left to right, as in the case of its descendants. However, an early coin found in Eran is
inscribed with Brahmi running from right to left, as in Aramaic. Several other instances of variation in the writing
[104]
direction are known, though directional instability is fairly common in ancient writing systems.

Brahmi is an abugida, meaning that each letter represents a consonant, while vowels are written with obligatory
diacritics called mātrās in Sanskrit, except when the vowels commence a word. When no vowel is written, the vowel
/a/ is understood. This "default short a" is a characteristic shared with Kharosthī, though the treatment of vowels differs
in other respects. Special conjunct consonants are used to write consonant clusters such as /pr/ or /rv/. In modern The Brahmi symbol for /ka/, modified
Devanagari the components of a conjunct are written left to right when possible (when the first consonant has a vertical to represent different vowels
stem that can be removed at the right), whereas in Brahmi characters are joined vertically downwards.

Vowels following a consonant are inherent or written by diacritics, but initial vowels have dedicated letters. There are three "primary" vowels in Ashokan Brahmi,
which each occur in length-contrasted forms: /a/, /i/, /u/; long vowels are derived from the letters for short vowels. There are also four "secondary" vowels that do not
have the long-short contrast, /e/, /ai/, /o/, /au/.[105] Note though that the grapheme for /ai/ is derivative from /e/ in a way which parallels the short-long contrast of the
primary vowels. However, there are only nine distinct vowel diacritics, as short /a/ is understood if no vowel is written. The initial vowel symbol for /au/ is also
apparently lacking in the earliest attested phases, even though it has a diacritic. Ancient sources suggest that there were either 11 or 12 vowels enumerated at the
beginning of the character list around the Ashokan era, probably adding either aṃ or aḥ.[106] Later versions of Brahmi add vowels for four syllabic liquids, short and
long /ṛ/ and /ḷ/. Chinese sources indicate that these were later inventions by eitherNagarjuna or Śarvavarman, a minister of KingHāla.[107]
It has been noted that the basic system of vowel marking common to Brahmi and Kharosthī, in which every consonant is
understood to be followed by a vowel, was well suited to Prakrit,[108] but as Brahmi was adapted to other languages, a
special notation called the virāma was introduced to indicate the omission of the final vowel. Kharoṣṭhī also differs in that
the initial vowel representation has a single generic vowel symbol that is differentiated by diacritics, and long vowels are
not distinguished.

The collation order of Brahmi is believed to have been the same as most of its descendant scripts, one based on Shiksha,
the traditional Vedic theory of Sanskrit phonology. This begins the list of characters with the initial vowels (starting with
a), then lists a subset of the consonants in 5 phonetically-related groups of 5 called vargas, and ends with 4 liquids, 3
sibilants, and a spirant. Thomas Trautmann attributes much of the popularity of the Brahmic script family to this
"splendidly reasoned" system of arrangement.[109]

Punctuation
Punctuation[110] can be perceived as more of an exception than as a general rule in Asokan Brahmi. For instance, distinct
Variants of Brahmi over time
spaces in between the words appear frequently in the pillar edicts but not so much in others. ("Pillar edicts" refers to the
texts that are inscribed on the stone pillars oftentimes with the intention of making them public.) The idea of writing each
word separately was not consistently used.

In the early Brahmi period, the existence of punctuation marks is not very well shown. Each letter has been written independently with some occasional space between
words and longer sections.

In the middle period, the system seems to be developing. The use of a dash and a curved horizontal line is found. A lotus (flower) mark seems to mark the end, and a
circular mark appears to indicate the full stop. There seem to be varieties of full stop.

In the late period, the system of interpunctuation marks gets more complicated. For instance, there are four different forms of vertically slanted double dashes that
resemble "//" to mark the completion of the composition. Despite all the decorative signs that were available during the late period, the signs remained fairly simple in
the inscriptions. One of the possible reasons may be that engraving is restricted while writing is not.

Baums identifies seven different punctuation marks needed for computer representation of Brahmi:[111]

single and double vertical bar d

( anda) - delimiting clauses and verses
dot, double dot, and horizontal line - delimiting shorter textual units
crescent and lotus - delimiting larger textual units

Letters

Vowels

Mātrā IAST and Mātrā IAST and

Letter Letter
(with ka) Sanskrit IPA (with ka) Sanskrit IPA

a /ǝ/ ā /aː/

i /i/ ī /iː/

u /u/ ū /uː/

ṛ /ṛ/ ṝ /r̩ː/

l̩ /l̩/ ḹ /l̩:/

e /e:/ ai /ǝi/

o /o:/ au /əu/

Consonants
 Stop Nasal Approximant Fricative
Voicing → Voiceless Voiced Voiceless Voiced
Aspiration
No Yes No Yes No Yes
→

Velar ka /k/ kha /kʰ/ ga /g/ gha /ɡʱ/ ṅa /ŋ/ ha /ɦ/

Palatal ca /c/ cha /cʰ/ ja /ɟ/ jha /ɟʱ/ ña /ɲ/ ya /j/ śa /ɕ/

Retroflex ṭa /ʈ/ ṭha /ʈʰ/ ḍa /ɖ/ ḍha /ɖʱ/ ṇa /ɳ/ ra /r/ ṣa /ʂ/

Dental ta /t̪/ tha /t̪ʰ/ da /d̪ / dha /d̪ ʱ/ na /n/ la /l/ sa /s/

Labial pa /p/ pha /pʰ/ ba /b/ bha /bʱ/ ma /m/ va /w, ʋ/

The final letter does not fit into the table above; it is ḷa.

Descendants
Over the course of a millennium, Brahmi developed into numerous regional scripts, commonly classified into a more rounded
Southern India group and a more angular Northern India group. Over time, these regional scripts became associated with the
local languages. A Northern Brahmi gave rise to the Gupta script during the Gupta Empire, sometimes also called "Late
Brahmi" (used during the 5th century), which in turn diversified into a number of cursives during the Middle Ages, including
the Siddhaṃ script (6th century), Śāradā script (9th century) and Devanagari (10th century).

Southern Brahmi gave rise to theGrantha alphabet (6th century), the Vatteluttu alphabet (8th century), and due to thecontact of
Hinduism with Southeast Asia during the early centuries CE, also gave rise to the Baybayin in the Philippines, the Javanese
script in Indonesia, the Khmer alphabet in Cambodia, and the Old Mon script in Burma.

Also in the Brahmic family of scripts are several Central Asian scripts such as Tibetan, Tocharian (also called slanting
Brahmi), and the one used to write theSaka language.

Several authors have suggested that the basic letters of hangul were modeled on the 'Phags-pa script of the Mongol Empire, Gupta script on stone Kanheri
itself a derivative of theTibetan alphabet, a Brahmi script (see origin of Hangul).[112][113] Caves, one of the earliest
descendants of Brahmi
The arrangement of Brahmi was adopted as the modern order of Japanese kana, though the letters themselves are
unrelated.[114]

Unicode and digitization

Brahmi was added to theUnicode Standard in October, 2010 with the release of version 6.0.

The Unicode block for Brahmi is U+11000–U+1107F. It lies within Supplementary Multilingual Plane. As of August 2014 there are two non-commercially available
fonts that support Brahmi, namely Noto Sans Brahmi commissioned by Google which covers all the characters,[115] and Adinatha which only covers Tamil
Brahmi.[116] Segoe UI Historic, tied in with Windows 10, also features Brahmi glyphs.[117]

The Sanskrit word for Brahmi (IAST Brāhmī) in the Brahmi script should be rendered as follows: .
 Brahmi[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

U+1100x

U+1101x

U+1102x

U+1103x

U+1104x

U+1105x

U+1106x

U+1107x BNJ

Notes

1.^ As of Unicode version 10.0

2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

See also
Early Indian epigraphy
Lipi
Pre-Islamic scripts in Afghanistan
Sankhalipi
Tamil-Brahmi

Notes
1. More numerous inscribed Sanskrit records in Brahmi have been found near
Mathura and elsewhere, but these are from the 1st century CE
onwards.[31]
2. The archeological sites near the northern Indian city of Mathura has been one of the largest source of such ancient inscriptions.
Andhau (Gujarat)
[32]
and Nasik (Maharashtra) are other important sources of Brahmi inscriptions from the 1st-century CE.
3. Aramaic is written from right to left, as are several early examples of Brahmi. [47] For example, Brahmi and Aramaicg ( and ) and Brahmi and
Aramaic t ( and ) are nearly identical, as are several other pairs. Bühler also perceived a pattern of derivation in which certain characters were
turned upside down, as withpe and pa, which he attributed to a stylistic preference against top-heavy characters.
4. Bühler notes that other authors derive (cha) from qoph. "M.L." indicates that the letter was used as amater lectionis in some phase of Phoenician
or Aramaic. The matres lectionis functioned as occasional vowel markers to indicate medial and final vowels in the otherwise consonant-only script.
Aleph and particularly ʿayin only developed this function in later phases of Phoenician and related scripts, though also sometimes
functioned to mark an initialprosthetic (or prothetic)vowel from a very early period.[51]

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External links
"Brahmi Home". brahmi.sourceforge.net. of the Indian Institute of Science
"Ancient Scripts: Brahmi". www.ancientscripts.com.
"Brahmi Texts | Virtual Vinodh". www.virtualvinodh.com.
"BhashaIndia - Empowering Indic Language Computing and Localization through Unicode"
. www.bhashaindia.com.

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